Considering I gave you multiple opportunities to be anything except a corporate apologist and you're basically shilling for OPEC+ (a cartel), Comcast (a monopolist in most areas), and landlord corporations, I'm going to file you with the rest of the "right-wing libertarian" fun bunch.

Markets aren't naturally competitive. That statement is borne out through centuries of history as well as the philosophical texts that capitalism is often said to be founded upon.

It's one of the government's jobs to keep markets competitive through anti-trust enforcement, consumer protections, and other items in their rule book (anti-price gouging laws, preventing giant, harmful mergers, anti-usury laws, etc). The reality is that they haven't been really doing this job since the days of Reagan.

You have a lot of need for proof from others for their stance that greedflation exists, but I'd like some proof that these markets are actually functioning well without government intervention, because as a user of these markets I see very little choice, very little "innovation" at all, a lot of rising prices, and a lot of quarterly calls where people in these industries are bragging to investors about being about to achieve record profits.

QE forever does explain the recent weirdness in the housing market, because it's one of the only areas of the economy where Joe six pack can buy a mostly leveraged asset using funds from big banks, but it does not solely explain why rent prices keep soaring despite landlord's costs not really rising in many areas. It also doesn't explain many, many other inflation scenarios.

EDIT: Also, raising prices due to greed does not have to be coordinated in the shadows like you're saying. A lot of c-level executives talk on their quarterly calls about how "there's still an opportunity here for us to raise margin" and "the market is still indicating that the higher prices can be absorbed by the consumer" and such. It doesn't take smoky backrooms to look at the environment you're in and say "Hey, I think I could raise prices right now. Why not? Everyone else is doing it and blaming it on inflation".

[–] dx1@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Wtf. Didn't I just outright call Comcast an abusive monopoly. Not bothering with this.

Maybe stop* trying to file people away in categories and take them at what they actually say.

[–] aesthelete@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You produced some giant wall of text apologizing amongst other things for it being a "PITA" to run fiber, ignoring the basic facts that: a) that's their fucking job, and b) the government has paid telecommunications companies multiple times to run them and they still haven't done it, and c) they fight against municipal efforts to run the fiber themselves.

[–] dx1@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I wrote a four sentence paragraph saying why they have a monopoly in a lot of places, saying the entire economic model around them should be replaced, and accusing them of using monopoly power to price gouge. It's incredible how this is the exact opposite of what you're accusing me of saying.

[–] aesthelete@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Now re: telecoms - this is a whole second issue. There are single providers in a lot of areas, for a bunch of reasons (PITA to deploy to rural places, municipal agreements limiting telecom deployment to a single provider, etc.). That is more “infrastructure” like, ergo, what most people would say is more deserving of being run by government, or IMO, by NGO non-profits/cooperatives. I know firsthand the BS Comcast pulls with jacking up their prices to $200/mo or whatever when they can get away with it.

Here's your paragraph:

pretend that they're isolated in their market behavior because of some innate peculiarity in this market
apologize for the difficulties of being a telecom provider, and pretend that exclusivity in localities isn't something they directly lobbied for (i.e. corrupted the local government for)
"most people say this is the government's job" most people? Ok. Is that what you're saying?
I too am getting fucked by Comcast... Ok? Great.

It's not just telecommunications companies that have these problems. Do a depth analysis on other market segments. Everywhere you look in the US economy there's an orgy of monopolistic or duopolistic markets, cartels, price gougers, government corruption, endless corporate acquisitions, and every other type of anticompetitive behavior.

[–] dx1@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Just doubling down on the bad faith. Yep, not playing this game. Not everyone is your enemy pal.